In the two decades that I've been playing videogames, I can easily say that Chants of Sennaar is one of the best games that I've ever played. With nine award nominations, stellar review scores, and a 98% positive rating on Steam, it's clear that I'm not the only one who adores Rundisc's indie puzzler.
Chants of Sennaar is a beautiful, colorful indie game made by Rundisc, a two-person studio based in Toulouse, France. You play as a traveler, slowly climbing a Tower of Babel-esque structure, learning about the people and cultures of each floor, and helping them to reconnect by deciphering and translating their languages. As someone with an academic linguistics background, this concept immediately gripped me, especially as it's so difficult to get right. Rundisc's game not only smashes the language aspect out of the park, but also manages to tell a poignant story about culture, belonging, and communication at the same time.
While the game launched in late 2023, it's about to get a renaissance in the gaming world as Rundisc and publisher Focus Entertainment have partnered with Playdigious to bring the game to mobile on August 26, 2025. Although the developers have given plenty of insightful interviews over the years, I was still itching to talk to them about their process, so the imminent mobile launch gave me the perfect opportunity. I sat down with Rundisc's co-founder and Creative Director, Julien Moya, to talk about the game, and his answers certainly didn't disappoint.
Firstly, because Moya has stated multiple times before that he isn't a linguist, I wanted to know where his interest in linguistics came from. He said that, while he's never studied linguistics academically, "as a graphic designer, I've always been interested in different writing systems and their evolution on a graphic and cultural level." Plus, at its heart, Chants of Sennaar is a puzzle game rather than a language game, so he and fellow co-founder Thomas Panuel were "inspired by languages for their ability to be transformed into puzzles."
Of course, Chants of Sennaar isn't the only game to play with invented languages. Inkle's detective game Heaven's Vault and Lizardry's 7 Days to End with You both did so before, but in my (and many others') opinion, they didn't quite hit the mark. In fact, Inkle's title directly inspired Moya to make Chants of Sennaar because, according to an interview with gamesindustry.biz's Ignas Vieversys, he didn't "enjoy the game as he hoped he would."
I asked him what the key component was that made his languages feel so real compared to those in other games, and whether he thought that other developers had missed or misunderstood something about the process. "I wouldn't say that other developers have missed or misunderstood anything," Moya replied. "It's just that we didn't make the same game. We didn't place our priorities in the same place, and we didn't tell the same story."
He continued, "The subject of Chants of Sennaar is, above all, cultures: how they evolve, how they differ, how they separate us or bring us closer together. We didn't just set out to create a puzzle or deciphering game, we wanted to tell a fable about culture and its central place in our societies." This is precisely why Chants of Sennaar's five logographic languages feel so alive - because their culture is alive. In Heaven's Vault, you're dealing with an ancient language and dead culture, and 7 Days to End with You only lets you speak to one person. Chants of Sennaar embeds you in the language and culture, showing you how different people use the same words and phrases, and it just clicks. A language is nothing without its people, after all.
Rundisc's development process reflects this, too. Moya said that, "For each floor, we first created a "people", with its history, its values, its vision of the World, its architecture, its art, and its relationships with other peoples. And then we created the languages these people use, which are simply a reflection of all the above. It's probably this approach that gives the impression of living languages that have substance, "flesh", and make them more credible."
Language also has no meaning without people to share it with, and yet, Chants of Sennaar is a single-player game. I played it with my partner, taking turns controlling the traveler and sharing translations, and it works wonderfully as a rainy day cozy game for couples. Moya told me that the game's success as a group activity came as a "surprise" to him and Panuel, but it makes a lot of sense upon further inspection. He said, "It's a game that relies very little on gaming skills, so it doesn't really matter who's holding the controller: you can play the game simply by looking at the screen and sharing your assumptions with the other player, and it's just as much fun."
As well as its immersive and intellectual gameplay, Chants of Sennaar is known for its easily recognizable art style. Moya has discussed the Franco-Belgian comic book influences on his work in the past, as well as the impact that a tight budget had on the game's art direction, but I wondered if he took inspiration from any other media. "Even before comics, it was the old isometric 3D adventure games from '83 to '88, which I played on Amstrad CPC, that inspired me, [specifically] La Abadía del Crimen, an unofficial Spanish adaptation of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. As a child, I found these games fascinating in the way they created strange, slightly unsettling atmospheres and labyrinthine worlds with so few graphic assets."
Another benefit of this less realistic art style is its portability to other platforms. While Focus Entertainment made the decision to port to mobile rather than Rundisc, Moya said the idea seemed "exciting to us right away, especially after meeting Playdigious. In terms of porting quality, Playdigious has a track record that speaks for itself, so we had complete confidence in them." Of course, Playdigious is responsible for some of the best mobile game ports out there, including games like Dead Cells, Little Nightmares, and Cultist Simulator.
He continued, "We were able to meet with them before the final decision was made, and they totally convinced us with the passion they already brought to talking about the project. As far as we can see at this stage, the result will be great." It's monumentally exciting knowing that more people than ever will get to experience Chants of Sennaar's story and themes, especially on such an accessible platform.
That being said, the juxtaposition of a kind, thought-provoking story existing on the same device as the social media apps that we use to yell at each other every day intrigued me, so I asked Moya for his thoughts on this strange scenario and the message that his game might bring to the world. He said, "The message of this game is to take a step back from our own certainties, from the mental constructs that come from our culture, and to understand that people, wherever they come from, have much more in common than we might sometimes think.
"I don't think a video game like ours could be enough on its own to affect one's worldview, but since we had the opportunity to pass on a message, Thomas and I chose to pass this one. It's a fairly simple message, a little naive as all fables are, but it has the merit of existing in a world that unfortunately seems to be tearing itself apart more and more." Hopefully, one or two players will see the merit of Rundisc's message and start to consider the world around them a little differently.
Lastly, I asked if Rundisc is working on anything new, and I'm pleased to report that a new game is in the works. Moya said, "It's not a sequel to Chants of Sennaar, but it's set in the same universe. Aspects of the DNA of Rundisc and this IP will obviously be present, but you can expect a significantly different experience." He also told me that if money, time, and resources weren't an issue, this next title is exactly the kind of game that he would like to make.
Chants of Sennaar is available on Nintendo Switch, PC handhelds, and other consoles, and is coming to Android and iOS on August 26, 2025. You can pre-order the game on the App Store and Google Play for an introductory price of $6.29.
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